Codelab and umlaut Offices – Szczecin
MIXD worked with Codelab and umlaut to design a work experience as enjoyable as the journey in a comfortable car for their offices located in Szczecin, Poland.
The Codelab and umlaut companies, in their Szczecin office, work primarily with clients from the automotive industry. The software they create makes the automotive technology work perfectly, allowing you to enjoy the best while driving: speed, a sense of freedom and readiness to explore new places. While designing their office, MIXD made sure that the experience of the work space is as pleasant as a journey in a comfortable car.
The leitmotif of the space is travel and everything that we associate with it: gas stations, roadside bars, beaches, camping and tourist routes. Already at the reception, we are greeted by ready to go into the unknown Fiat 500 retro. The iconic car is the ancestor of tens of millions of modern cars which today use software written in Codelab.
The next stage of an office trip is the Gas Station. One of the parts of the common area is where the battery is charged for work – with a cup of coffee in hand. Right next to it, we have the Cafeteria, inspired by American roadside drive-in bars. Finally, the last part of the common area is the Beach devoted to rest and co-working. Centrally located common spaces allow both to integrate a crew of almost 300 and to keep work areas calm. We also have three different zones there: a cozy, intimate Homeoffice, elegant Car Interior and a raw, minimalist, definitely the most “office” Loft.
In the area of the 3,000 m2 office, cars and technology are constantly appearing – in the form of toys, motifs from Takie Pany murals, or a children’s carpet with a city motif, where everyone played with cars, but there are also motifs close to geeky sneaks to programmers – “ducks” used to test codes (which are also an unofficial element of CI Codelab), Space Inviders, old school slot machines, pixelated graphics, vinyls and music posters. The space is eclectic and diverse, each of the aforementioned common areas and work zones is different, both in terms of colors and the materials used. A reference to automotive climates is also sheet metal – pressed, as on the reception casing, or perforated as in a car service – in work zones.
A journey in the office is also a journey in time, to the 1950s and 1960s in the USA, but also to the those years in Szczecin – to the iconic bar Pasztecik and Kameralna café, to the past of Posejdon office building.
Design: MIXD
Design Team: Piotr Kalinowski, Katarzyna Majer-Hola, Paweł Panek, Alicja Dziedziela, Anna Stachi, Beata Ogrodnik, Adam Warchoł, Gosia Trelińska
Photography: PION Studio
